by Rigel, LK
“Thank you, Trenam,” he said to the even older butler. “I’ll take it from here.” He hesitated over at the champagne but picked up the teapot. “Milk or lemon?” All very proper and nice.
“Neither. Thank you.”
He wasn’t at all bad-looking, tall, slender and fit. His baby blue eyes crinkled at the edges, and his light brown hair had a reddish tint that gave him an air of mischief. Or perhaps Beverly just had Mischief Night on her mind.
He handed her a porcelain cup and saucer, and she couldn’t help but make a comparison: The earl’s practiced elegance of inherited position to Dandelion’s artfully directed power of immortal youth.
Lord Dumnos sipped his tea and looked at the portraits as if to avoid something else, an uncomfortable duty that must be performed.
Great gods. His note said he had arranged to cover her shifts. Was it for more than tonight? Had the Tragic Fall hired her replacement? She set the cup down on the cart. Was she being sacked?
“At the time, I thought it was right to offer you a place at the Tragic Fall,” Dumnos said, oblivious to her agitation. “I imagined then you’d prefer to remain in the village with your sister. But now I wonder if I should have encouraged you to stay on at university.”
“I was glad to come home. I wanted to be with Marion. I was so grateful for your interest in us after the accident.” She wanted to ask about Goldenrod, but she couldn’t think how. “And I do enjoy working at the Tragic Fall.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” the earl said. “But I’d like to change the arrangement.”
Bugger. She was being sacked. What had she done wrong? Nothing. It was all too much. The real world made no more sense than the world of the fae. “This is a sodding crummy way to go about it,” she said. “If you’ll pardon my speaking my mind.”
“I suppose it is.” He gave her a strange look. His hand shook a little, and he put down his cup. “I never thought I would do it, you see.” He fingered the top of the champagne bottle sticking out of a silver ice bucket. “I never prepared for it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” He’d have his minions to do it for him. “I suppose I should be flattered you did it yourself instead of sending someone else.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I mean I…”
It was time to go. Where was her handbag? “I’ll save you the trouble. Message delivered. I hope you won’t mind if I drop around the pub and say goodbye to Ian and the gang.”
“Then you agree.” He looked as if he didn’t quite believe her. As if she was the one acting strangely.
“Do I have any choice?”
“Well, this is the twentieth century, after all.” He untwisted the wire on the champagne cork. It looked expensive. Dom Perignon Oenotheque. Too expensive to celebrate a sacking. With the one being sacked.
“Wait. What is this all about?”
“Think of it as a marriage of convenience,” he said. “A business arrangement.”
“Business?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “Marriage?”
He handed her a champagne glass etched with butterflies. “I’ve watched you, Ms. Bratton. I haven’t seen a favored suitor. In fact, you seem to have no suitors at all.”
“You’re not sacking me.”
“Not in any sense of the word. Surely you’ve heard the rumors about me.”
Her face went hot.
“So you have then. The fact is, Faeview—or Bausiney’s End, as the locals now call it—needs an heir. I must marry.”
“How very Georgette Heyer of you.”
“Touché.” Lord Dumnos laughed pleasantly. “Spend the weekend in London, Ms. Bratton—Beverly,” Lord Dumnos said. “Stay at the Dorchester. Sample what your life would be like as the countess of Dumnos.”
Great gods. A countess.
“You might do me a great favor and attend the fairy exhibit at the Victoria & Albert. I’ve lent them Bausiney’s Abundance in honor of its 100th anniversary, and I’ve been a wreck since it left the End. You can check on it for me. Make sure the fairies don’t show up and claim their lost treasure.”
He chuckled, but he wasn’t joking. And she knew it.
Beverly’s heartbeat quickened. A hundred years was nothing to Dandelion. He was immortal! He wanted the fairy cup more than anything. When he learned it had left the cold iron fortress of Faeview, that it was to be put on public display, he wouldn’t be able to resist. He’d do exactly what Lord Dumnos suggested: break in to take it back.
On Mischief Night, she was sure of it, Dandelion would be at the V&A.
“I will,” she said. “I’ll go to London.”
Piccadilly Circus
AT TINTAGOS HALT, THE EARL met Beverly just as the train to London rolled to a stop. He arrived on horseback, of all things, dismounted like an athlete and draped the reins over the post.
Maybe she was being too hard on him. Maybe forty-eight wasn’t exactly ancient. He approached her through the mist and steam, a positively romantic figure.
“I wanted to give you this, Ms. Bratton.” He handed her an envelope with the moon and stars design. “Don’t open it until you’re on the train.”
“That’s all very mysterious. But all right.” It was terribly thick. He must have been up all night writing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know so much about him.
“I wish you a fine time in the city, and—”
“Don’t—don’t make wishes,” she said. “It’s bad luck.”
“Oh? Then I hope I’ll have your answer when you return.”
She forgot about his letter until the train passed the white horse at Westbury. When she opened the envelope, she gasped. It contained five hundred pounds and a note in the earl’s hand.
Enjoy! Spend all with abandon. Harrod’s expect you tomorrow morning. I look forward to your return. Dumnos.
Hundreds of years, even thousands of years of reality hit her. The horse carved into the mountain by who-knows-who was a sign. Marriage for love was a modern construct, after all. Forever, people had married for convenience and advantage, whether personal or political.
Look at Dandelion, immortal and inured to love. He’d told her if he married at all it would be to benefit of the Dumnos fae.
And what of herself? The only man she’d even liked was a twelve-hundred-year-old fairy. Her wish for true love had brought her to him. Crazy as it sounded, there would be no one else for her.
She had her answer. Yes. She would accept Lord Dumnos.
They’d muddle through the mechanics of it all. As Goldy said, homosexuality had never yet stopped a lord from getting an heir if he wanted one. In exchange Beverly would get what she wanted. Security for herself and a better future for Marion.
She arrived at Paddington Station after four o’clock and took a cab to the hotel. Dumnos had reserved a suite for her at the Dorchester on Park Lane. A bottle of champagne waited in an ice bucket near the window.
Lord Dumnos had said he wanted to pamper her, and there were five hundred pounds in her handbag to prove it. To please him, she’d stop at Harrod’s in the morning, but she was more a Marks and Sparks girl.
One thing was certain. From now on whatever she bought would be made of natural materials. She had another blooming headache, and she was wearing her best polyester shirt. Maybe it was psychological or maybe being with Dandelion had changed her somehow. Either way, she couldn’t stand the feel of fake fibers anymore.
After a bubble bath, she wrapped up in the luxurious hotel robe and ordered dinner served in her room. She ate chateaubriand and drank champagne and watched the colors of trees along Park Lane change with the setting sun.
I don’t pretend to love you, and I don’t ask you pretend to love me, the earl had said. Right. She could live with that.
She wasn’t worried about falling in love elsewhere. It was too late on that score. Her heart was lost to a man she could never have whether she was free or not. A man whose existence her brain would deny if her heart weren’t so convinced of the truth of him.
&nb
sp; She had traveled through time to meet Dandelion. He’d made love to her in a shower of celestial light. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
He was real. He was out there somewhere. At this very moment, he might be across the street in Hyde Park. A hundred years older than when she saw him yesterday. Would he look the same? Would he remember her?
When he called her name as she was pulled into the portal, he’d sounded genuinely distressed. She wanted to believe he felt something for her. He said fairies didn’t love—but she wanted to know he had felt the connection, soul to soul, as she had. They could never be together. She accepted that.
She only wanted to see him one more time.
Being a peer’s special friend had its benefits. After Harrod’s offered to send her purchases to the Dorchester, Beverly asked M&S to do the same—and they agreed! Then when she finished shopping she had lunch at the Ritz, something she never expected to afford.
It was too early to go to the Victoria & Albert Museum—the docent didn’t expect her until this evening—so she decided to visit Piccadilly Circus and look for a souvenir for Marion.
The tube would have been faster. London was one big Halloween party. The jam of people on Piccadilly made progress impossible by motor.
“Just stop here,” Beverly said to the driver of the black taxi cab. “I’ll get out.”
She took her new wallet from her new handbag, both made of the softest leather she’d ever touched—made by human hands, anyway; her wonderful fairy boots were in her closet at home, and her feet already regretted it. Even shopping at Harrod’s this morning, she’d found nothing to compare with them.
She gave the driver a five-pound note out of the three hundred pounds she still had left. It was difficult to “spend all” when pre-alerted clerks insisted they’d been instructed to put her purchases on the earl’s account. She stepped out of the taxi into a cacophony of voices and honking horns and the music of competing street musicians.
The visual feast was equally busy: Londoners everywhere tried to out-crazy each other with Halloween costumes. She remembered Sundays in the city being crowded, but this would be Mischief Night, more crowded and far more crazy than usual.
It felt good to stretch her legs, but she didn’t like carrying so much cash with all these people on the street. While she considered how best to hold her handbag, she stepped on the foot of a giant rabbit. He squeaked in pain, and his ears perked straight up. How did he do that?
“A treat for the sweet!” He handed her something from the basket on his arm.
The injured rabbit skipped away through the crowd as well as he could with a mashed big toe. Beverly bit into the chocolate brownie he’d handed her. It was pretty good, though a bit dry.
A quite grownup-looking Alice pushed through the crowd and examined Beverly mid bite. “Have you seen a rather large white rabbit?”
Beverly laughed and pointed directions. This was why she’d loved London from the beginning. The city itself was performance art. Living, breathing theater.
Piccadilly Circus was even more jammed up. People covered the stone steps around the Shaftesbury fountain at the center of the circus, eating and drinking and watching the parade of costumed pedestrians.
Street vendors peddled all sorts of things: used records, handmade clothes, jewelry, candles, and antiques. Beverly spotted exactly what she’d been looking for in the shops: a large bag with a wide cotton strap. It was a patchwork of silk and satin, lined with cotton and deep enough to hold more than a wallet and a lipstick.
“Uh!” The crowd surged behind her and knocked her against the display.
“It’s mad out there,” the vendor said. “Why don’t you come round to the side?”
She looked like something out of Neverland. She wore a ring on every finger and an ivy garland in her spiky unnaturally red hair. Her short green tunic was sleeveless and had a ragged hem. At first her arms and legs appeared bare, but when she moved they shimmered like they were covered with an impossibly thin magical material.
“Thanks, I will.” Beverly stepped out of the foot traffic.
“It’s gotten wilder every troop—every Halloween—the last twenty years.” The vendor grinned mischievously. She was model gorgeous, with creamy skin and a perfect figure.
“I’ll take this.” Beverly handed over the bag. “You don’t look much older than twenty, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I don’t mind. How old would you say I am?” The vendor’s green eyes sparkled. “A prize if you guess right.”
“Twenty-five?” Beverly guessed her own age, but she already knew that was wrong. The vendor’s beauty was breathtaking, but it was her eyes that gave her away. Fairy green. She could be any age.
“That’s it, you win,” the vendor said. “Keep your money.”
“My name’s Beverly.” Let’s see if she’s named for a plant.
“I’m Cissa.”
Cissa! There couldn’t be two Cissas. She had to be Dandelion’s sister. Beverly looked back to the circus, searching through the people. He had to be nearby.
“How about a trade for your little bag?” Cissa said. “See anything you like?”
“Your necklace?” Beverly immediately regretted the offer.
Cissa narrowed her eyes, and her hand shot to her throat. “Not for all the champagne on Park Lane.” She protectively fingered the red cord woven with beads of cloisonné and what looked like a glittering piece of marcasite at the center.
“It is lovely,” Beverly said.
“I know. I have just the thing for you.” A faintly wicked smile curled Cissa’s lips. “You need a costume.”
Cissa browsed through the blouses and skirts hanging on a wire around the stall’s perimeter. Max had called her an exasperating thief. Beverly wondered if all these things were pinched. Cissa selected a few things and pulled aside a curtain to a makeshift dressing room.
“In here.”
Nothing seemed to be holding up the wire where the clothes hung or the dressing room curtain. Suddenly happier than she thought she’d ever feel again, Beverly stepped behind the curtain to change.
“Are you from London?” Cissa said.
“No, Dumnos. Tintagos Village.”
“I know it. Near Faeview,” Cissa said. “Bausiney’s End, they call it now.”
Beverly stepped out. “Ta-da!” She was dressed in fishnet stockings and white patent leather boots, a plaid miniskirt with a plain black top, and a fringed leather jacket.
Cissa clapped her hands and bounced. “Good!”
Beverly half expected her to extend wings and spin up into the air like Morning Glory.
“You’re almost mod,” Cissa said. “You need one more thing.” She covered Beverly’s curly brown hair with a long black wig.
“I’ve always wanted straight hair,” Beverly said.
“And now this.” Cissa handed Beverly a pink lipstick so pale it went on almost white. “It’s the piece of resistance.” She laughed at her own joke and held up a looking glass.
“Is this a magic mirror?” Beverly said. “I look fab.” Cissa had loaded her up with liner and mascara. With the straight hair and pink-icing lips, she was the image of a ‘60s go-go girl.
“A glimmer glass can enhance beauty,” said a voice from the street, deep and familiar. “But it can’t create it.”
“He returns at last,” Cissa said with mock exasperation.
Beverly looked over her shoulder. It was him. His dark ginger hair was the same, pulled away from his face and secured by silver hair picks and falling long and loose down his back. He wore a cord choker like Cissa’s, but his was much simpler, black, with only two obsidian beads and the same marcasite-like jewel just below his Adam’s apple. Simple but elegant.
A Nikon camera hung from his neck. His photographer’s vest had pockets all over the place stuffed with film and lenses. He’d pushed the long sleeves of his sky-blue cotton Henley up to his elbows. Beverly fought the urge to graze her
fingers over his forearm.
He handed Cissa a paper bag. “I brought you a sticky bun.”
For Beverly it had been two days, but the chasm of a century lay between them.
“Dandelion,” Cissa said. “This is Beverly. She’s from Tintagos Village.”
“Hello, Beverly.” His eyes were like emeralds in sunlight, and his smile was pleasant…but formal. It was nice, and it was nothing. “Have you come to London to stay? Or are you like us, merely let out on parole?”
He had forgotten her. How could something so painful be so good at the same time? So good to know, really know, he existed on the planet. So painful that he didn’t know her.
His gaze traveled over her outfit. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he reached the fishnet stockings, and his hand moved to his camera. “I should take your picture.”
Beverly wanted to touch him. She wanted it so much it hurt. It was like being separated from the real world by a glass window. She was suddenly hot and dizzy. If spontaneous combustion were real, she’d burst into flame right there. This desire was too much, too intense.
This was a mistake. She never should have come to London. She dropped the bag on the table and backed out of the stall onto the street. She let herself be carried away by the flow of the crowd.
Chorus
THE NOISE IN THE CIRCUS was a chorus of human voices, frustrated traffic, wind, and birdsong. Being jostled about worked in a weird way to calm Beverly down. The accidental shoves and bumps were impersonal, emotionless. They meant nothing, and that soothed her.
Everyone was smiling, happy. The city welcomed all. She was connected to every person and every thing in the universe. Marion, Ian, Dandelion, Morning Glory, Goldy. Even Cissa.
Even Lord Dumnos.
A burst of wind swept leaves and loose papers off the ground in swirls. How had she never realized? The colors of the world were marvelous, even the grays and browns of the stone buildings and concrete sidewalks had their nuances of shadow and light, shallow and depth.
Music filled the air. A flute solo from near the fountain called to her. The notes were made of hot honey that traveled through the air to her skin, permeating her with relaxing vibrations. She’d never felt music on her skin before, not even when she was in fae.
